E 



64th Congress } 
1st Session f 



SENATE 



/ Document 
t No. 17 



JOHN WARWICK DANIEL 



ADDRESS 

DELIVERED AT THE 

UNVEILING OF EZEKIELS STATUE OF 

SENATOR DANIEL, AT LYNCHBURG, VA. 

MAY 26. 1915 



BY 



WILLIAM M. THORNTON * 






PRESENTED BY MR. MARTIN 
December 13, 191 5.— Ordered to be printed 



WASHINGTON 
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 






D. of D. 
JAN 6 1916 



I 



JOHN WARWICK DANIEL/ 



i BY WILLIAM M. THORNTON. 



I 



We are met to-day to do honor to the memory of a great Virginian. 
Born and reared in this city, he made it always his home^he center 
of his deepest affection, the focus of his strongest activities. Here 
he grew to manhood; here he lived and loved and labored; here he 
died; and here at last he was buried. It is meet and right that 
here in Lynchburg should be reared the noble bronze which shall 
tell to coming ages the name and the fame of John Warwick Daniel. 
Soldier and orator, jurist and statesman, lawgiver and Senator, with 
a loyaltv rooted like Virginia's mountains in the Virginian soil, with 
a patriotism broad as our Continent, this he was to all his country- 
men, to all Americans. To us Virginians, to you, men and women 
of Lynchburg, he was more. This bronze effigy fitly figures the 
stately dignity and courtesy of the man, his high political serious- 
ness, the austere beauty of a countenance like that of some Roman 
patrician of the Augustan age. It tells nothing of the heart which 
beat so w^armly in that dauntless breast; nothing of the magnetic 
gaze which seemed to draw other hearts into his allegiance; nothing 
of the mellow harmonies of that magic voice which seemed to claim 
us all as his friends; nothing of the proud affection which Avelcomed 
all Virginians as his brothers. Let us spend a few short minutes in 
saving concerning this great Virginian some of the things which no 
bronze can ever say. 

FIRST PERIOD. 

John Warwick Daniel was born the 5th of September, 1842; he 
died 29th of June, 1910. His 68 years of life, so rich in events, in 
duties bravely done, in responsibilities nobly borne, in honors worthily 
won and generously given, fall naturally into three well-marked 
periods: From his cradle to Appomattox, from Appomattox to 
Washington, from Washington to America's great hall of fame. 
Let me sketch a few pictures for you from the first of these periods. 

The first picture which comes before us shows a mother, beautiful 
and young and tender, bending in adoration over the slumber of her 
first-born child. It is Sarah Anne Warwick and the child is John 
Warwick Daniel. Too soon this picture fades from our view. The 
fragile young mother is called away from earth to heaven and John 
Daniel and his infant sister pass to the care of their grandparents, 
inheriting, it mav be, a love all the richer for their orphan state. 

Daniel himself paints for us the next picture in the series, a 
portrait of John Warwick, his grandfather, in whose affluent home 
his boyhood w'as passed. , 

A nobler man never lived — hospitable, gentle, calm, self-poised — a gentleman 
in honor, in manners, in innate refinement. A pure and lofty soul, he seemed 



* Reprinted from the University of Virginia Alumni Bulletin for July, 1915. 

3 



4 JOHN WARWICK DANIEL. 

to me to be everything that a man could be to be respected and loved. Suc- 
cessful from his youth in business, he was rich and penorous without pretension 
or pride. Yet wlion the end of tlie Civil War prostrated his fortune and he 
became old and almost blind his easy dignity lost no feature of its serene com- 
posure, and out of his true heart came no complaint of man or fortune. 

As we view this portrait we seem to recognize the source of that 
peculiar charm which Daniel's colleague, Senator Lodge, so beauti- 
fully characterizer], "that grave courtesy, which never wavered; 
these manners, serious, gracious, elaborate, if you please, but full of 
kindness and thought for others, which can never really grow old 
or pass out of fashion," even in our hurried, hustling time. 

The winged years sweep swiftly past and soon a fresh picture 
greets our view. We see on the rostrum of the Lynchburg ]\Iilitary 
College a handsome youth of 16 years. His inborn tastes for debate 
and declamation have already declared themselves, and John Daniel 
has been selected to rej^resent his class. The world was still thrill- 
ing with the blood-stained story of Balaklava when Daniel rose to 
his feet and with impassioned eloquence recited to his auditors a 
poem new to most of them — Tennyson's immortal " Charge of the 
Light Brigade." 

" Forward the Light Brigade ! " 
Was tliere a man dismayed? 
Not tlio' the soldier knew 

Stmie one had blundered — 
Their's not to make reply ; 
Thelr's not to reason why ; 
Their's but to do and die ; 
Into the Valley of Death 

Rode the six hundred. 

Already the souls of Virginians were stirred by somber premoni- 
tirns. and it is easy to realize in fancy how these splendid stanzas, 
hot f r( m the heart of this beautiful ycung orator, may have pealed 
into their ears vague prophecies of the coming storm — of Jackson 
and the Stonewall Brigade, of Lee and the Army of Northern 
Virginia. 

Two more years of peace were vouchsafed our <;ountry, and in 
these years Daniel gained new and priceless visirns of life and let- 
ters. From 1825 to 1828 the great Latinist, George Long, had 
labored at the University of Virginia to fcund a school of the Clas- 
sical Languages and Literatures. When he resigned his chair to return 
to England his mantle fell on the shoulders of a young Virginian, 
the most brilliant of his pupils, Cessner Harrison. Thirty years of 
service for his alma mater had left Gessner Harrison poor in purse 
but rich in scholarship, in experience, in the love of his old students, 
in the esteem of his colleagues, in the admiration of men of learn- 
ing, in the confidence of Virginians and of the whole South. His 
extended knowledge of the educational situation in the Southern 
States assured him that a great work awaited the man who should 
establish a high -el ass prei)aratory academy for students desirous 
of adequate training f ( r a course of university studies. In 1850 he 
resigned his professorship and organized such an academy, occupy- 
ing for the first year rented quarters at Locust Grove, near Green- 
wood, in Albemarle County, and then removing to a purchased es- 
tate called Belmont, in Nelson County. Daniel, with his high ambi- 
ti( ns. was at (nee drawn to this man. the greatest classical master 
of his generation in America. Entering the new academy at Locust 



JOHN WARWICK DANIEL. 5 

Grove and following the headmaster to Belmont, he came under the 
inspiration of a teacher of rare sagacity and power, a man who 
added the graces of the Christian to the culture of the scholar. We 
have no means after so many troubled years of evaluating the spe- 
cific influences of this school upon Daniel's intellectual tastes and 
modes of thought. One of the schoolboys of that day writes thus 
pleasantly about him: 

John Daniel's principal claim to distinction at school was his wonderful dex- 
terity in the same of bandy. He was by all odds the best player in the school. 
His other big activity was in the debating society, and at the end of the session 
he was the orator, John Selden being the essayist. Daniel had the same qual- 
ity then as subsequently of carrying away his audience by his rhetoric, his 
splendid musical voice, and his wonderfully handsome features. He was 
already an accomplished elocutionist. 

Another schoolfellow, one of his more intimate friends, adds to 
the little picture some very telling strokes : 

•Tohn Daniel was a dignified youth, but full of comradery. Yet he never 
allowed this to interfere with his work, being a good and close student, already 
ambitious to fit himself for a great career as a lawyer and orator. There was 
never a squarer boy ; his mere presence was a check to ribaldry and black- 
guardism. He had the divine gift of being fair to his opponents, but he de- 
manded a return in kind. If be had not become a great man and, better still, 
a greatly loved man, all schoolboy signs would have failed. I loved him then 
and now revere his memory. 

There you have him before you, a square boy, a high-minded boy, 
an ambitious boy, a gifted boy — ready to ripen under the fervid 
heat and strife of war into a valiant soldier and a true patriot. 

The fateful spring of 1861 saw the storm of war burst over Vir- 
ginia. Daniel withdrew from the academy, returned to his home in 
Lynchburg, and enlisted as a private in the Wise Troop of Cavalry, 
then recruiting in his native city. His knowledge of tactics gained 
in the Lvnchburg Military College soon brought him a commission. 
On the 8th of May, 18Gl,"he was appointed second lieutenant in the 
Provisional Armv of Virginia, was assigned to duty with Company 
C, Twenty-seventh Virginia Infantry, the nucleus of the famous 
Stonewall B'-igade, and v.as orde^-ed to report to Harpers Ferry to 
Lieut. Col. Thomas J. Jackson. There he spent several busy weeks 
as drillmaster. 

Our next picture of him comes from the historic battle ground of 
Bull Run. Alreadv he had been hit twice. Once a flying fragment 
from an exploded shell struck his head, but his cap saved hmi from 
serious hurt. Again a spent bullet struck him full in the breast and 
felled him to the ground; this time it was the metal button on his 
coat which saved him. Presentlv, in a fierce charge, the regimental 
color sergeant was shot down. Daniel sprang to his side, seized the 
standard, waved it aloft, and Avith it pressed forward until relieved 
by command. Then a rifle bullet found him, and, shot through the 
left hip, he fell to the earth. Using two muskets as crutches he limped 
from the field, and was later borne away and sent to his home in 
Lynchburg, where for several weeks he remained on a bed of fevered 

suffering. -o n -d 

Another picture comes to us. His gallant conduct at Bull Kun 
secured him well-deserved promotion. He is now first lieutenant and 
adjutant of his regiment. Eleventh Virginia Infantry. Lee had 
outgeneraled McClellan, crossed the Potomac, and advanced into 
Maryland. With his wonted audacity he had divided his little army, 



6 JOHN WARWICK DANIEL. 

although in the presence of a superior force of the enemy, had sent 
Jackson back to reduce Harpers Ferry, and with Longstreet was 
awaiting Jackson's return. His purpose w'as first to crusli McClel- 
lan by the simultaneous impact of his two victorious corps and then, 
marcliing upon AVasliington, dictate an honorable peace beneath tlie 
Dome of the National Capitol. Suddenly, after nightfall of the 13th 
of September, 1862, the news comes that by some fatal error on 
the part of Lee's staff the copy of his general orders sent to D. H. 
Hill had been duplicated; that one of the two copies had been lost at 
Frederick, found by a Union civilian, and placed in McClellan's 
hands. 

The emergency was frightful. If McClelland had been capable of 
swift and vigorous action it would have been easv for him to occupy 
the mountain passes, thrust his army between the divided corps of 
Jackson and Longstreet, and annihilate Lee in detail. Grey ti'oops 
were hurried back to Cramptons and Turners Gaps, and to the latter 
point Daniel's regiment was sent. The Federal assault upon this 
position begnn at 7 o'clock on the morning of the 14th of September, 
1862 — one Confederate brigade defending the pa?s against 18 Fed- 
eral brigades. The southerners were pressed slowly back and bnck. 
The general was killed; the men were utterly exhausted. But before 
their adversaries could utilize their advantage Confederate reinforce- 
ments came up. darkness fell, and the day was saved. 

It is in the midst of this despei'ate and unequ.al conflict that we get 
onr new picture of Daniel. He stands in line of battle guarding the 
mountnm pass and. as he shifts his pistol from one hand to the other, 
the bullet from a Federal rifle perforates the hand that grasps the 
weapon and flattens itself against the pistol stock. Daniel slipped his 
unwounded hand into his pocket, drew out and opened his pocket 
knife, then coolly slit the skin of his hand and picked the bullet out. 
When the days of peace returned he had it mounted as a watch 
charm, and wore it for a souvenir of this heroic dav. Luckilv no 
bones were broken, but the wound was too serious to be tampered 
with, and Daniel was again perforce olT dutv for many weeks. 

One more picture — the date is March, 1863. Our boy soldier is a 
major now — major at 20 in the Armv of Northern Virginia, assist- 
ant adjutant general, and a member of Gen. Earlv's staff. No Lynch- 
b'lrger needs to be told who Jubal Earlv was: dour old fighter, Avith 
his grim air and his rasping tongue, and behind it all a heart compact 
of pure courage and kindliness and honor and truth. Daniel himself 
has sketched him for us — "a man of peace before the war. a man 
of battles during the war, a hero in fidelity and fortitudes after the 
war, and the very incarnation of its glorious memories." They were 
both your fellow townsmen and you can picture them side by side — 
the bearded old warrior and the young staff officer with his classic 
face and his patrician air. Abrupt, rough, peremntorv, formidable 
Early whips out one of his usual oaths and orders Daniel upon some 
urgent duty. The young adjutant drew himself to attention, looked 
the old general squarely in the eye, and with perfect courtesy and 
calm answered — 

<Teiieral. when you nddress me ns one gentleman should address another, I 
will obey your orders; but not otherwise. 

The bullets of Bull Run and Boonsboro were nothing to this. But 
Early was too true a man, too good a soldier, not to see his own fault 



JOHN WAKWICK DANIEL. 7 

wnd make swift amends. The relation of general and staff officer 
gi-ew into a devoted friendship, and in that splendid eulogy pro- 
nounced by Daniel above Early's open grave we hear the voice not 
of a subordinate recounting the exploits of his honored chieftain; 
not of a comrade, sharer of ten thousand glorious memories; but the 
\oice of a loyal and loving son, who heaps laurels and rains tears 
upon his dead father's beloved form. 

We must hurry on down the long gallery of these heroic scenes; 
time presses and I can make room for but one more picture from this 
period of Daniel's life. We pass Fredericksburg, Winchester, Gettys- 
burg; splendid settings as they were for the valorous deeds of Early 
and Early's Division, they may not detain us. The time is the spring- 
tide of 1864; the place the Wilderness of Spottsylvania. Amid these 
dim thickets, where the battle smoke and blood reek of Chancellors- 
ville seemed still to linger, Lee and his immortal Army of Northern 
\'irginia were at grips with Grant, the most formidable of all his 
adxersaries. It was the campaign in which Lee's gaunt grey line 
faced by overwhelming forces killed and disabled more of their 
enemies than the total of their own numbers. Here on the 0th of 
May. 1864-, Daniel saw a southern colonel shot dead and his regiment 
thrown into confusion. Prompt action was needed; Daniel spui-red 
his horse to the front, reformed the broken lines under a terrific fire, 
and was about to lead them again into the fight. Just at this critical 
moment a hostile bullet struck him down; the dauntless young Vir- 
ginian dropped from his saddle, his thigh bone shattered and the 
femoral artery severed by the ball. He dragged himself for shelter 
behind a fallen log and there, with no surgeon in reach, he found 
himself hopeless of rescue and fast bleeding to death. With rare 
jiresence of mind he unwound from his waist the silken sash that 
jrhowed his military rank and improvised a tourniquet for the injured 
limb. His life was thus saved, but his soldier's career was closed. 
No more campaigns, no more battles, no more promotions; but out 
of those heroic days he brought what he deemed the most honorable 
of all his titles — major in the Army of Northern Virginia. Then 
Appomattox came and the first period of Daniel's life was ended. 

SECOND PERIOD. 

Peace once more; arms stacked and battle flags furled; Virginia 
one great impoverished, hoof-beaten desert; but still men called it 
peace ! The veterans of the Army of Northern Virginia were sum- 
moned to take up life anew — to mould the shattered fragments again 
into strength and wholeness. A few, desperate of the future, sank 
into despondency and inaction ; that was not John Daniel's way. A 
few abandoned Virginia and made for themselves new lives in sister 
States or foreign lands; neither was that John Daniel's way. Lee 
had declared himself resolute to " abide the fortunes and share the 
fate of my own people." ^ 

And Daniel thought like Lee. Inherited aptitudes and family 
traditions marked out for Daniel his one sure path. That path he 
followed for his country's great good and his own great glory. 

John Daniel was the son of an able lawyer and distinguished judge. 
William Daniel, jr., after a brilliant career at the bar, revealing lofty 
standards of character and rare abilities, was elected in 1846, at the 



'8 JOHN WARWICK DANIEL. 

age of 40 years, to a seat upon Virginia's court of last resort, the 
Supreme Court of Appeals, and there served his State with diligence 
and distinction until in May, 1865, the Federal President abolished 
the self-organized government of the Commonwealth and set up 
Francis H. Pierpont as provisional governor of Virginia. 

John Daniel was also the grandson of a great lawyer. William 
Daniel, sr., was a man of distinction and power, the friend and asso- 
ciate of James Madison, one of the judges of the Circuit Court of 
Virginia, and as such a member of the General Court, which until 
1851 exercised the functions of our present Court of Appeals. His 
luminous and vigorous opinions are still quoted, and his name stands 
high in the judicial history of Virginia for clear vision and incor- 
ruptible integrity. 

With such forbears John Daniel seemed predestinated for the pro- 
fession of the lawyer. 

Bv the autumn of 1865 the University of Virg'nia had been re- 
habilitated out of the private means of its faculty, and on the 1st of 
October it Avas again opened for students. More than two hundred 
men presented themselves for admission, most of them Confederate 
veterans, and among these came John Daniel, limping on his crutch. 
The head of the law school of that day was John B. Minor, the man 
of whom Daniel said in after years — 

I do not believe his superior fvs a law teacher ever existed. Patience, pru- 
dence, and punctuality ; concentration and continuous attention to the business 
in hand; infinite tact and painstakins; sweetness of temper, mild and winning 
manner, unfailing courtesy and consideration, and modesty withal — with what 
long and laborious fidelity has he exercised these virtues. 

Such was the man at whose feet John Daniel sat during the session 
of 1865-66. The methods of instruction developed by Prof. Minor 
exerted a powerful influence on Daniel's professional life. I am told 
by competent authority that his own writings are penetrated through 
and through with the high philosophy of jurisprudence, and one of 
his dictums was the simple summary of his old teacher's practice: 

Take care of the principles and the cases will take care of themselves. 

In the fall of 1866 John Daniel entered upon the practice of the 
law in partnership with his father, who survived until 1873. He was 
in the prime of his intellectual powers, being only 24 years old; and 
although his Avounds never ceased to ache, they had not then impaired 
his general health or abated his natural vigor of body or of mind. 
He was endowed by nature with rare eloquence, beautiful features, 
a youthful figure of slenderness and grace, a melodious voice, dra- 
matic action, and that inward fire of regulated passion which radiates 
heat through the eye, the countenance, the gesture of the genuine 
orator and kindles into flame the emotion of his audience. The in- 
fluence of good teachers, of a cultured home, of a social order not 
oblivious of the things of the mmd. not yet infected with the virus 
of materialistic ^reed, had taught him to know books and to love 
them, had given him fellowship with those who live the life of the 
spirit. The experience of four years of war, of camp and march, of 
tented field and battle line, had taught him to know men and to love 
them, had given him followship with those that tread patiently the 
diisty highway of our daily life. Fresh from the teachings of a man 
whom he described as among the " masters of him who seeks himself 
to master the jurisprudence of the English-speaking family," and 



JOHN WARWICK DANIEL. 9 

penetrated with the lofty conceptions of \e^a\ ethics ilhistrated in the 
lives of his own pro.cjenitors he entered upon the profession of his 
own choice with those exalted ideals which touched to noblest issues 
the conduct of his entire public career. Listen for a minute to his 
creed : 

The frroat lawyers, whetlier at llie liar or on the bench, have been the men 
^\ho stood for Ki"<'at moral priiu-iples and impressed them into the spirit of the 
lav. The law, indeed, is tlie i)ublie conseience, uttered as tlie public will, and 
.sanctioned' by the i»ublic pow«'r. It deals with rijihts in order to defend and 
preserve them. It deals with wrongs in order to repair or prevent them. It 
ends in justice, and justice means peace and honor. 

It is Daniel's highest distinctim that his life, both professional 
and piiblic, conformed to this exalted creed. Xot without insight did 
his great colleague. Senator Eoot, of Xew York, pay to his character 
this elo(iuent tribute : 

Above all the men whom I have ever known he created an atmosphere which 
lifted up those about him to the hif,'h plane of his own noI)le purpose. 

One more thing must be said of Daniel; despite his affluent elo- 
quence he was an indefatigable, a prodigious worker. Tco many men 
endowed with gifts like his, facile and fluent speakers, trust to^ their 
gift and neglect that arduous tcil, that profoimd study, which can 
al( ne give to their utterances permanence and value. Into this error 
Daniel never fell. He bestowed upon his cases before the courts that 
detailed analysis and .searching investigation which made him mas- 
ter of all their complexities and rendered him well-nigh irresistible, 
wiiethei- as advocate or jurist. He prepared himself for his debates 
in the Senate with the same scrupulous care, and with the same deep 
and prolonged meditation: and the result is that his orations before 
that great body arc documents not for to-day only but for all time. 

"He did not si)eak on many subjects," said Senator Lod,£?e. "He was not an 
Incessant talker. Hut un:>ii any topic whicli en.^aned bis attention he spoke 
♦•ojiiously and well, and never failed to show that he had thought much and in- 
dependeiuly upon the questions involved. He liked large issues because they 
offered the widest opi)ortunity for speculation as to causes and for visions of 
the future. Tins reach of mind nuule him an American in the largest sense, 
find showed clearly in that note of intense patriotism which sounded so strongly 
in his formal addresses." 

Only stich an assiduous worker as Daniel could have found time in 
the thick of a large and growing practice for the ccmposition of the 
two works which he added to the literature of his profession. The 
first of the.se on the "" Law of Attachments under the Code of Vir- 
ginia," published in 18G9, less than three years after his entrance 
uprn the practice, while little more than a useful compilation, met a 
genuine professional need and has ever since been constantly used as 
a standard authority before the Virginia courts. The second w'ork, 
a masterly treatise on "Negotiable Instruments," published in 1876, 
was the fruit of eight years of arduous and unassisted labor. Daniel 
went back in his studies to the original authorities and the records 
of the courts, pursuing his researches in the great law libraries not 
of Virginia only, but of the other States of the L^nion as well. The 
work is ranked by competent jurists among the few great philosophic 
dissertations on Ihe la^v contributed by America to legal literature. 
It has passed through five editions and remains to-day the great ex- 
position of its theme — without an equal, without even a rival. Men 
who know Daniel bv this book onlv regret that he abandoned the 



10 JOHN WARWICK DANIEL. 

law for the seductions of politics, and believe that if he had been 
faithful to his first mistress his fame as a jurist would have surpassed 
his renown as a Senator. 

It Avas not to be exi)ected, however, that a man with Daniel's 
forensic powers, livinof in an epoch when all the defenses of civiliza- 
tion in the South seemed to be threatened, summoned by his fellow 
citizens to lead them in a moral war for social and political independ- 
ence, could withhold his hand. He served in the House of Delegates 
of Virginia from 1869 to 1872 and in the State Senate from 1874 to 
1881. The problem of the readjustment of the State debt had by 
that time become the vital problem of Virginia politics. The read- 
justers among the Democrats, making common cause with the Re- 
publicans, promulgated a plan for the forcible scaling down of th& 
bonded debt of Virginia, and selected as their candidate for governor 
a Virginian of ancient lineage, brilliant talents, and agirressive elo- 
quence — William E. Cameron, of Petersburg, Va. The regular 
Democrats turned to Daniel, who under the compulsirn of a pro- 
found sense of dutv accepted the leadership of a forlorn hope. The 
campaign which followed was the most thrilling in the political 
history of Virginia. The ablest men in the Commonwealth threw 
themselves heart and soul into the struggle, and Daniel led his forces 
with knightly courtesy and magnetic eloquence. Men crowded in 
thousands around tho platforms from which he spoke, and hung en- 
tranced upon his golden periods. He was no match for Cameron in 
the rough and tumble contests of the stump, nor did he attempt to 
meet his keen and aggressive adversary rn the low plane of sophis- 
tical argument and equivocal honesty. Daniel lifted the debate into 
the high air of spotless honor and stainless rectitude, and so con- 
ducted it as to win not the votes of his countrymen in the pending^ 
election but the deathless allegiance of their consciences and their^ 
souls. The result of the conflict is known to all men; Camerrn be- 
came the governor of Virginia ; Daniel became the leader and com- 
mander of the Virginians. From that day forward there was no 
office of the Commonwealth — whether of trust, or honor, or emolu- 
ment — which John Daniel could not have had for the asking. From 
that day forward there was no platform in Virginia which the 
" Lame Lirn of Lynchburg " could tread without evoking a storm 
of loving applause. 

Even before the end of Cameron's term Daniel's reward came to 
him. He was elected to Congress in 1884 and served in the House of 
Representatives from 1885 to 1887. In 1886 he was promoted to the 
United States Senate and was reelected in 1892, in 1898, in 1904, and 
last in 1910, the year of his death, he was chosen by unanimous vote 
for a fifth term of six years. When he died he was the ranking 
Democratic member of the Senate, and in that august bodv there 
were only four men who could show a longer period of continuous 
service. No other Virginian in all history had ever approached this 
record. What State has ever more richly recompensed the defeated 
advocate of a lost cause? It is pleasant to record here a brief extract 
from the beautiful eulogy which appeared in the Norfolk Virginian 
the morning after Daniel's death, and to know that this just and elo- 
quent tribute came from the pen of his old-time adversary, ex-Gov. 
William E. Cameron : 

Daniel's brilliant record as a soldier, his commanding fijnire and classic face, 
his mellowness of tongue and grace of gesture, and a gift of oratory which 



JOHN WARWICK DANIEL. Ij 

lackod no essonti.-il quality of natm-al grace or oulturet' finish— all those be- 
spoke for him initial iioi)ularity : hut neither one nor all of these pleasing attri- 
hutos woiild have sufliced to estai)listi or protract his primacy in the puhli.c 
heart thron^di the tryin.ir political vicissitudes of so many eventful years had 
he heen wanting in those elements of character that owe notliina: to chance 
and yield nothing to change — courage unfaltering, truth unquestioned, honor 
beyond taint or t"mptation, and a civic conscience as sensitive as that which 
guided and guarded the conduct of the private gentleman. 

Words like these are no less honorable to him who writes than to 
him of whom they are written. It was Daniel's merit to accept de- 
feat without rancor. It was Cameron's distinction to recognize the 
essential greatness and nobility of his adversary. 

THIRD PERIOD. 

Twenty years of arduous professional labor had done much to pre- 
pare Daniel for the wider field of action upon which he was now to 
enter. His knowledge of law, or history, of politics, of government 
had been enriched by wide reading and profound meditation. The 
youthful exuberance of his rhetoric showed already marks of the 
l)run!ng knife, and his orations began to approach that mold of 
monumental dignity and beauty which arrested attention and won 
adherejTts even in the Senate of the United States. I fancy that 
John Daniel would have named Thomas Jefferson as the greatest 
American statesman: certainly his own political instincts and ideals 
were largely th(>se which Jefferson had caused to prevail. Like Jef- 
ferson, he trusted the people of his country, b-cause by close intimacy 
and wide experience he had found them worthy of trust and believed 
them also worthy of freedom and political power. His abidino; faith 
in the honesty of h's fellow citizens, his rooted belief in their common 
sense, his trust in the appeal to the educated reason of the voters, his 
assurance that human society is capable of indefinite advancement 
in virtue and uprightness, his firm conviction that majorities rule 
not by might akme but of right as well, made of Thomas Jefferson 
the typical American and the like qualities made of John Daniel the 
typical Jeffersonian Democrat. 

As his colleagues said of Daniel, he was not an incessant talker; 
but when he talked the Senate listened, for he never spoke unless he 
had something to say. He dealt as a rule Avith great questions and 
spoke only after careful ]n-eparation and prolonged meditation upon 
his theme. These questions he handled in such masterly fashion, 
with argument so convincing, with eloquence so persuasive, with a 
temper so lofty and serene, that his discourses will long remain 
documents worthy of admiration and studv. His argument against 
the force bill of 1890, his exposition of the Monroe doctrine upon the 
occasion of Cleveland's Venezuelan message, his plea for ccngressional 
recognition of the belligerency of Cuba, are permanent additions to 
American political literature. In each case he dealt with a problem 
of great and abiding interest: in each case it was necessary to set 
forth in clear order a vast complex of facts and to carry a long train 
of intricate argument to a convincing end ; in each case it was Daniel's 
aim to crystallize his conclusion in some memorable phrase, which 
should make permanent lodgment in the minds of his hearers. It is 
only by careful reading of these documents that we come to appreciate 
their luminous clearness, their energetic forcefulness, their perfect 
artistry. Here are a few samples of his method ; but remember that 



12 JOHN WARWICK DANIEL. 

they are samples only and give you no adequate conception of the 
vigor and the beauty of the whole. 
Of the force bill : 

Behind this bill crouches the empire. * * * It is not by anything I say 
that I lini)e to utTect a vote. lUit these sacred principles of American lil)erty 
neitlior came from me nor derive any .sanction by me. Tliey are my ri.a:lit, they 
are my i)e()pl(>'s ri.dits. they are my comitry's ri^lits. Tliey liave llowed down 
from the lieadwaters of the Anglo-Saxon race; they have been achieved by the 
battles of a thousand years; and that for which our country is most famous 
is the fact that it has been the sternest and the truest of that race in their 
defense. 

Of possible war with Spain : 

It is said that this means war. I deny it. I do not wish to see the American 
people involved in war. I loolc upon war as one of the greatest calamities that 
can befall the human race. But there is one other much greater cnlamity, and 
that is for the high public spirit of a nation to he so deadened that it can look 
upon plunder and pillage and nnn-der and arson with indifference and can stifle 
the truth for venal considerations. It is worse than war for the public spirit 
of that nation to be so deadened that it hesitates or delays one instant to go 
forward and to do any act of high and great justice because of fear of war. 

Of the Monroe doctrine : 

With us are the law and the prophets, and behind us are the intelligent, patient, 
and patriotic masses of a great people, whose approval of American i)rinciples is 
umnistakable. I fully agree with those who caution us against inflammatory 
and irritating speeches. * * * But common sense looks at facts as they are, 
and it is a fact so plain that he who runs may read that this Nation will not 
recede from the Monroe doctrine. It is not to l»e expected of us who have time- 
honored principles to vindicate, an obvious and wise policy to subserve, and a 
noble, aspiring nation to uphold in its dignity as the paramount power of the 
Western Hemisphere, to speak in whispers, to start at shadows, or to mope 
in pusillanimous silence when the corridors of the Capitol are ringing with 
denunciations of our course, and with ill-conceived belittlements of our fixed 
faith. 

Not the least interesting outcome of Daniel's senatorial career is 
the steady development in his own nature of that spirit of high- 
hearted Americanism which made him in his later years a great 
national figure in our public life. So gradual was the change that it 
may be douljted whether he himself was conscious of that tidal 
stream in his own soul, which bore him forward into new seas of 
emotion and belief. It is when we read his public utterances in their 
chronological order that we come to see how far the Federal Senator 
has voyaged from the port whence the Confederate major first set 
sail. It would be too long to trace out his route in its com]:)leteness; 
we can spare time to look at only a few of the landmarks left by him 
along the shore. 

Here is Daniel the law student of 1866, final orator of the Jeffer- 
son Society of the University of Virginia, as he makes his valedic- 
tory to his fellow students: 

From fir.st to last Virginia was foremost in the picture by the flashing of the 
guns, and though her fair domain has been reddened with the heart's blood of 
her children and blackened with the ashes of happy homesteads, we re.ioice 
today as we rebuilil our ruins and scatter ro.ses o'er our brothers' graves that 
all have preserved unstained their sacred honor. 

Here is the Daniel of 1877, now a member of the State Senate, 
speaking from the same platform and once more to an audience of 
students : 

Revere the past; but remember that we can not live in it. As Christ said 
of the Sabbath, so may we say of the past — it was made for man, not man 



JOHN WARWICK DANIEL. IS 

for it. * * * We failed to conquer tlie form ; be it ours to strive to con- 
quer the souls of our Northern brethren, with a sublimer faith, a more gracious 
courage, a broader magnanimity. Magnanimity of the conqueror is a generous 
concession ; magnanimity of the conquered is an heroic achievement. The 
form of Saxon Harold was conquered at Senlac ; his soul lives and conquers 
still in the blood of our conquering race. 

In 1890 he delivered before the General Assembly of Virginia and 
by their invitation a discourse on the life and character of Jetferson 
Davis. He discussed the legality of secession and the causes of its 
overthrow : 

The United States have been unified by natural laws, kindred to those 
which unified the South in secession, but greater because wider spread. Its 
physical constitution answered in IPGl for the Northern mind that written 
constitution to which the South appealed. The Mississippi River, natural outlet 
to tlie s3a for a new-born empire, was to it a greater interpreter of that consti- 
tution than the opinions of statesmen who lived before the great republic 
spanned the Father of Waters. * * * We are not of the North but of the 
South ; yet now like all Americans we are both of and for the Union, bound 
up in its destinies, contributing to its support, seeking its welfare. As he was 
the hero in war who fought the bravest, so he is the hero now who puts the 
past in its truest light, does ju.stice to all, and knows no foe but him who 
revives the hates of a bygone generation. 

Six years later he is addressing the Senate of the United States on 
the occasion of President Cleveland's Venezuelan message: 

The British minister, George Canning, boasted in 1S23 that he had called 
the New World into existence to nvh-ess the balance of the Old. If those who 
sympathize with Great Britain in this generation possess Canning's prescience, 
tiiey nuist know that this Republic will not permit those balances to be dis- 
turiied by tlie weight of an iron hand, nor that New World to b9 made the 
prey of European adventurers; they must know that America's answer was 
tinal ; they nuist know that if all Europe were to form itself again into a new 
conspiracy of kings to make spoil of any portion of the American continents, 
under any kind of cloak or pretext, and were to lay hands of violence for 
that purpose upon any, even the weakest of our neighbors, the United States 
would rise and face embattled Europe as one man, American sailors would 
scourge the sea from pole to pole, and six millions of American soldiers would 
spring to their guns. 

Again in 1900 Daniel was the spokesman of the Senate at the joint 
assembly of the two Houses of Congress, met to celebrate the centen- 
nial of the first session of that body. 

Great peoples are made of the mixture of races, like the beautiful bron7,es 
which are composed of many metals. The- brightest and bravest blood of the 
AvorUVs great races is mixed in our blood. This is the only great Nation that 
ever passed through its formative conflicts without inflicting in a single case 
the penalty of death for a political cause. Does not this fact alone speak vol- 
umes for free thought, for free speech, for the Government of the people, for 
the high character of the American? If we have had strife it has been the proud 
and loftv strife of the brave and the true, who can cherish honor, who can 
cherish principle, who can cherish love, but who can not cherish hate. And be 
this never forgotten; our only strife was over the heritage which empire foisted 
upon our ancestors against their will and which the Republic has removed for- 
ever. Great problenis -lie before us— race problem, trust problem, Philippine 
problem. We niav well view these and others with deep solicitude and anxious 
reflection. But if our problems be mighty, they grow out of our might and have 
the mightv to deal with them. They come to those who have n(>ver been con- 
founded bv problems and have never dodged one; who have solved problems 
just as great or greater than any now presented ; who have left them all behind 
with monuments of their solution builded over them. 

These citations have been chosen to illustrate the gradual evclu- 
tion of Daniel's conception of the problems of American statecraft. 
They exhibit also, better than any formal analysis could do, the slow 



14 JOHN WARWICK DANIEL. 

transformation of his oratorical style. That style remained to the 
end affluent, ornate, earnest, serious; the part of the jester, the part 
of the wit, the part of the cynic, the part of the butfoon— these were 
not Daniel's parts. But we may see how year by year useless orna- 
ment was pruned away; how year by year his periods were packed 
closer and closer with thought ; how year by year he seemed to lift 
his auditors to hidier planes of feeling and meditation. What had 
been florid became simple; what had been intricate became direct; 
what had been abstract became concrete. It would be too lono: to 
apply a like analysis to his splendid eulogies of the great Confederate 
leaders— of Jackson and Lee and Davis and Early ; or to his addresses 
on the historic events and figures of the earlier epoch of the American 
Republic— the Battle of King's Mountain, Washington, Jefferson, 
Pocahontas. To signal cut one or another for special praise would 
be invidious when all are of merit so distinguished, jeweled with 
passages of consummate beauty, and glowing throughout with an 
inward radiance of tender lovalty and devoted patriotism. It is 
commonly said that Daniel himself ranked his discourse upon the 
Battle of King's Mountain and his oration on Lee as, perhaps, the 
happiest of his formal addresses. Those who care for such distinc- 
tions will find much in these splendid examples of his eloquence to 
justify their claim to preeminence; but if, after reading Lee, you 
turn to Washington, or after reading the Battle of KinsT's Mount un 
you turn to the Gettysburg Campaign, you may yourself be tempted 
to reverse your own verdict. 

When we pass from the study of Daniel's career in detail to the 
contemplation of his genius and character as a whole, when we ask 
ourselves Avhat was the true secret of his power, we are at once con- 
fronted with a fact of deep significance— his profound unlikeness to 
the men of his own generation. Call the roll of post-bellum gover- 
nors. Congressmen, Senators from Virginia; you will find none like 
Daniel. Summon memory to bring back the great figures who have 
filled the stage of our national history during the decades of his public 
life: you will find not one like Daniel. His heart was warm and 
kind,' his nature affectionate and tender, his spirit attuned to the 
sincerities of friendship ; and yet there was in him a certain aloofness, 
a certain remoteness, a certain withdrawing from the familiar con- 
tacts of life. Men said that he was not a mixer; and yet he was pre- 
eminently a mixer; nearer to the plain common people than to then- 
leaders; nearer to the farmer between the plow handles than to his 
colleague in the Senate ; nearer to the man in the street than to the 
judge upon the bench or the governor in his chair of office. Men said 
that he was not a machine politician ; but in truth no man believed 
more thoroughly in political organization, no man followed more 
loyally the party flag; only he was closer in spirit to the voter than 
to" the'candidate^ nearer to the worker at the polls than to the manager 
of the campaign. Men said that he was impatient of detail and in- 
different to private and personal interests; yet his legal treatises, his 
debates in Congi-ess, his public addresses demonstrate a passion for 
detail, and his ardent eulogies of his comrades in arms show fathom- 
less depths of sympathy and apnreciation for his fellow men. 

The differences which marked him off from the other statesmen 
of his own epoch showed plainly in the subjects which attracted his 
interests and excited his enthusiasms. With but two exceptions 



JOHN WARWICK DANIEL. 15 

Daniel's problems were the problems of an earlier age. The problem 
of enlarging the power and distinction of the Nation without in- 
fringing upon the rights of the States to the amplest measure of 
local self-g'vernment : the problem of guaranteeing to our sister 
Republics in the two Americas the blessings of representative gov- 
ei-nment, unhanijiered by P^uropean control; the problem of extend- 
ing throughort both American Continents the reign of righteous- 
ness and peace, of prt sperity and order, of free speech and popular 
government — these problems and problems like them were the prob- 
lems which came near to his heart. Daniel's problems were the 
problems of the fathers of the Republic : the problems of Washing- 
ton and Jefferson, the problems < f Madisrn and Monroe, the prob- 
lems of the Nation rather than of a party. He conceived them as 
thev m'ght have conceived them, he attacked the solution as they 
might have attacked it. In this kinship of the great men of a great 
past we find the true secret of Daniel's stiength. Listen for a 
moment to the noble profession of his political faith : 

There is something in this country greater than party. Tliere is something 
higher tlian a fonvi-ntion i»latforni. It is principle ami country :in 1 Ivind. 
Tlianii God we are poopio of one langunge; of one hiw ; and of a si)irit tiiat 
sticivs to rlglit and will d«t it — as Cod grants us to see tlio riglit — regardless of 
consequi^nces to ourselves. 

The burning questions of our modern politics seemed alien to 
Daniel and as a rule he eschewed them. '' Ru-e problem, Philippine 
problem, tiust i)r()blem.' he say.s in cne of his orations: "What will 
you do with them ^ This is not the time, nor am I here to answer." 
Twice and twice only he attacked with his full force a modern ques- 
tion; and on both qiiestions the historic evolution of econrmic laws 
has put him in the wrong, 'i he one was the question of fiat money, 
as it is called: of an irredeemable national bank-note currency. 
The other was the (|uestion of national bimetallism, of the free coin- 
age of s'lver. Under jxx-uliar industrial conditions and for a brief 
period, from 1851 to 187-2, international bimetallism seemed to be a 
defensible proposition. After 187'2 it steadily Irst ground ; the logic 
of facts, more p<^tent than the logic of the schools, was against it; 
in 18TS the last 5-franc piece was coined by the Latin Union and in- 
ternational bimetallism came to its predestinated end. National bi- 
metallism never enlisted one competent defender; yet for 15 more 
years this fiscal nightmare tormented America, and it was not until 
the clos-ng of the two great markets for silver (the United States 
and British India) in 1803 that it received its coup de grace. 
Daniel was weak where Jelfersrn was weak; as Jeffersrn failed to 
grasp the merit of Hamilton's financial measures, so Daniel failed to 
read correctly the fiscal history of the modern world. Some men 
say that Daniel in the end recanted; I can not find that he ever 
recanted; he simplv saw that the battle had gone against him, and 
kept silence. He himself declared in after years that he fought the 
free-silver fight to the last ditch. 

This noble monument which we unveil to-day is therefore niore 
than the memorial of a great and good man. It is the memorial of 
the end of an era. It is the effigy of the man who interpreted that 
era to the modern world with an eloquence, a beauty, a sweetness, a 
nobilitv that men who knew him can never cease to remember and to 
reverence. His aspect was that of an earlier world— the aspect of a 
patrician, serene and calm and almost beautiful. His courtesy was 



16 



JOHN WARWICK DANIEL. 



that of an earlier world — grave, gracious, with a certain sweet sin-j 
cerity and yet also with a certain proud reserve. His eloquence was! 
that of an earlier world — copious, ornate, solemn, touched alwaysf 
with emotion, flushed often with passion, appealing at once to thej 
head and to the heart. His modes of thought Avere of that earlier 
world — deductive rather than inductive, "seeking the fountain! 
rather than following the stream," ideal rather than practical, thej 
thoughts of a philosopher rather than the thoughts of an empiric. 
His patriotism was of that earlier world — he loved Virginia best^j 
and in our common country he but loved a greater Virginia. The 
axioms of his personal life were of that earlier age — a loyal friend,] 
a chivalric foe, a devoted son, a tender husband, a solicitous father; 
he painted his own portrait when he described the man who could] 
cherish honor, who could cherish principle, who could cherish love,! 
but who could not cherish hate. This august bronze will figure forj 
coming generations, for your children and your children's children, 
not Daniel alone but that earlier age of which Daniel was thej 
essential product and the latest flower. When the time comes to] 
assess his value as a statesman, to weigh and to measure his gifts and 
his genius, he must be compared net with the men of his own epoch,! 
but with the statesmen of that earlier day. If the speaker were] 
required to ass'gn to John Warwick Daniel his iust place in that 
great company, he would rank him below Daniel Webster, or Henry! 
Clay, or John C. Calhoun; but higher than John Randolph of Eoa- 
noke, higher than Alexander H. Stephens, higher than Jefferson 
Davis. 

The private life of a great publicist is for his family, his home, 
his intimate friends — not for the public. Yet, concerning Daniel,] 
there are things which may be said without transgressing the bounds] 
of decency, and for our learning these things ought to be said. AVhen i 
we think of Daniel, there are two things never to be forgotten. With 
genius and opportunities which might have commanded rich recom- 
pense and laid the foundation of a great fortune, he gave his days] 
and nights of toil freely to his country and lived and died a poor man. 
AVith honorable w^ounds, which never ceased to ache and which at last 
broke the strength of even his stalwart frame, his labors were unceas- 
ing, his industry unremitting; neither pain nor weariness could still 
his active brain or deaden the generous beating of his knightly heart. 
On an occasion like the present Daniel himself summed up that which 
may decorously be said. Let us use concerning him the eloquent 
words which he used over the ashes of the martyred McKinley : 

I do not seek to canonize him as a saint or exalt him as a demitrod. He was 
neither; such ranks do not belong to men. He doubtless had his faults; at lea.st J 
this I assume, for he was a man, and there Ls none perfect — no, not one — but 
he was a Christian and a gentleman. He made mistakes an<l errors, as have! 
done the great and the small, the good and the bad, the wise and the foolish; 
but benignity beamed in his countenance, charity was in his heart and in his 
hands, and if none threw stones save those who had lesser faults than he. stone- 
would lie still and hands hang down. In the sum of his qualities there was a 
nob'e asnect. a f^enial influence, a friendly attractiveness, an upward and onward 
exhortation. There was also a subtle ma.cnetism — a namele.ss something that 
drew men to him and made good women honor and love him. He loved his fel- j 
low men; there was the true touchstone of his nature. He said all he could to! 
cheer them ; he did the best he could to serve them. This, to my understanding, 
is what is meant by true glory. 

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